Joey Logano started 14th and finished seventh with the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Fusion in Sunday’s Crown Royal presents the Combat Wounded Coalition 400 at the Brickyard. After starting outside the top-10, Logano slowly gained spots and when other leader lap competitors began pitting, he and teammate Brad Keselowski remained on the track, stretching their first fuel run past lap 40. The strategy positioned the duo to potentially make the event a three pit stop race. Logano and company battled a car that was tight in the center corners and loose on exit throughout the first half of the event. When the caution flag was displayed at lap 56, Logano was the lone lead lap car to remain on the track, sticking to crew chief Todd Gordon’s pre-race strategy. Logano would lead six laps, and posted a net gain of eight spots by the time the team pitted for the second time at lap 84. The team would again make wholesale changes to the Shell-Pennzoil Ford with wedge and air pressure adjustments. After the team made their third and final pit stop of the event at lap 122, Logano would survive multiple restarts and battle within the top-five, at one point reaching the second position final to the prior restart. In the end, Logano would drop to the seventh position as he fought to hold off competitors with fresher tires. With their 13th top-10 of the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup season, the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Fusion team moved into the fourth position in the championship standings. Logano is currently seeded eight among the Chase for the Sprint Cup competitors.

“I had a decent restart the first time, and the second one I probably had just as good of a restart, but the 20 got underneath me and I was kind of stuck from that point and kind of fell into the clutches of the tires behind me. I was trying to keep the Shell-Pennzoil Ford down and be where I needed to be to get in front of them, but they just kept turning underneath me. I hate that we finished seventh, but it’s probably where we deserved to finish from a speed point of view. I thought our execution went very well today to give us an opportunity to win, but we couldn’t quite get it done when it mattered.”